In a passive optical network (PON), an optical line termination (OLT) (also known as an optical line terminal) manages an optical network unit (ONU) or an optical network termination (ONT) (also known as an optical network terminal) based on messaging via an Optical Management Communications Interface (OMCI) channel. For example, the OMCI channel is used to read and write attributes of managed entities (MEs). A managed entity is a representation of a logical element or a physical element of the ONU or the ONT.
In 2010, the International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication (ITU-T) authored an OMCI specification known as Recommendation G.988. Recommendation G.988 specifies, among other things, the managed entities of a protocol-independent management information base (MIB) that models the exchange of information between the OLT and the ONU.